Studying Diversity in Teacher Education by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Unlimited Model
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

A FINAL NOTE

Teacher education programs must prepare teachers to work with racially and culturally different students. In order to do so, professors and instructors of teacher preparation programs must recognize and accept that we live in a culturally diverse society and that “all teachers must be knowledgeable, about cultural diversity, even if they do not teach in multicultural communities” (Kea & Utley, 1998, p. 45). Therefore, teacher candidates must spend their time in university classrooms learning to create equitable learning environments for Black and other racially and culturally different student populations.

Unfortunately, preservice teachers’ preparation for multicultural education is very limited. It is not integrated in a thorough, persistent manner and is delivered covertly in program requirements (e.g., Banks, 2008; Grant, 1994). This all-too-common approach leads to teacher candidates’ lacking awareness or not taking ownership of their ethnocentric views, stereotypes, and biases and their limited cultural competence regarding students whose culture differs from their own. This lack of multicultural competence or efficacy hinders their adopting affective practices with students and families from diverse backgrounds. A lingering and looming question, then, is “if the goal of education is to help students acquire the necessary tools in order to be successful in society, why, then, is it common practice to graduate preservice teachers without any experience, knowledge, or teachings from a multicultural perspective?”

Teacher training programs must help students to recognize and understand their own worldviews so that they are able to improve their ability to understand the different worldviews of their students. These candidates must confront their own biases (Banks, 2007; Ford, Grantham, & Whiting, 2008; Gillette & Boyle-Baise, 1995; Nieto & Rolon, 1995), learn more about their students’ cultures, and perceive the world through other cultural lenses (Banks, 1997, 2007; Gay, 2000, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 2009; Nieto & Rolon, 1995). However, without formal multicultural preparation that is ongoing and in most, if not all, coursework, it is virtually impossible for teacher candidates to change in their attitudes, values, and practice. With formal knowledge in cultural differences (e.g., via teacher education programs or professional development), teachers will be better equipped to help racially and culturally different students, increase their advocacy for such students, increase their self-understanding and empathy, decrease prejudice and stereotypes, and build a much-needed sense of community in their special education and gifted education classrooms.

Over the past few decades, several authors, including Banks (1994, 1997, 2008), Bennett (1990), Garcia (1994), Gollnick and Chin (1998), Grant and Sleeter (1998), and Heid (1988), have focused on the vital need to reform education from one that is Euro-centric or ethnocentric to one that is multicultural and otherwise culturally responsive. When teacher education students are formally trained in multicultural education, they can:

1. develop multicultural curriculum and instruction in all subject areas and courses;

2. integrate a philosophy of multiculturalism into educational practices, policies, and programs;

3. adopt multiculturalism in all educational systems and institutions, regardless of racial and cultural composition;

4. help to recruit and retain a more racially and culturally diverse and different teaching force; and

5. evaluate the

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